Evaluation- Finished Film

This is our two minute psychological thriller. Through recapping on everything that we have learnt so far, we have been able to incorporate all of our knowledge into creating this introduction. Thank you for watching.

Evaluation- Elidona Preliminary Coursework

This is Elidona Niklekaj's preliminary coursework. We found it difficult to edit this preliminary because there is so many elements that have to be simular to make the scene work. However, after spending time on this preliminary we found it very possible, and overall we were very happy with the outcome.

Evaluation- Xhuliana Preliminary Coursework

This is Xhuliana Deda's preliminary coursework. Whilst making this preliminary work we enjoyed expperimenting with different shots and angles, that helped us to gain a lot more understanding and knowledge on the subject. We now feel more comfortable using these shots/ angles in our thriller opening.

Evaluation- Shannon's Preliminary Coursework

This is Shannon House's preliminary coursework. We used different shots and angles in this mini clip so that we could experiment with the different techniques we have been taught. This preliminary coursework helped us to understand different shots, which is going to be very helpful whilst making our two minute opening introduction.

Evaluation- Hannah's Preliminary Coursework

This is Hannah Philpott's preliminary coursework. To create this preliminary we used different shots such as medium shots and close ups. We also used different angles so that the girls could be viewed from a certian perspective. We are happy with the overal outcome.

Evaluation- Shannon House- Evaluation Writeup

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media productions?

Our media product challenges stereotypical conventions as during the creation of our two-minute psychological thriller, we ensured that we included an argument between the four girls. This is stereotypical for girls around our age, because other age/ social groups perceive us as having pointless arguments, which escalate into unnecessary measures. We developed this idea through making the situation escalate into Danika (Xhuliana) killing her friends out of revenge.  However, in our introduction we also challenged normal forms of stereotypical conventions. The usual perception of teenagers is that we all drink lots of alcohol and smoke. In order to come away from these views, we did not include any smoking or drinking in our introduction. By making three girls act calm and normal, without the typical viewpoints that are perceived of them, we conflicted against the conventions of real media productions. Furthermore, we continued to rebel against sexist viewpoints because normally men are suppose to hold a lot more potential power than women. However, in our thriller we had Danika (a girl) turn against her friends, meaning she held a significant amount of power. On the other hand, some may say that this does conform to stereotypical viewpoints because although Danika holds power, she is psychologically damaged; showing sexual objectification.

How does your media production represent particular social groups?

In our two minute psychological thriller the main social group that we targeted was teenage girls. However, we created different personalities and psychological welfares between the different characters. The three friends act casual, not dramatic and they wear normal clothing. During our planning process, we used bubbl.us to look further into the characteristics of each individual person.  We worked on what kind of clothing we would be wearing, in order to present ourselves as middle class citizens. We achieved this effect by really analyzing our clothing; make up, actions, expressions and individual appearances. The use of teenagers work very well in our group, as this gave all of us the opportunity to choose independent characteristics, whilst exploring character representations.

Through using teenagers (ourselves) this allowed us to connect to our target audience better because our viewers are aged around this age sector, and therefore our story is made more personal and individualized. By using teenage girls as our main topic, this also added to the suspense and tension of our two minute psychological thriller. By using teenagers, this created an overwhelming sense of vulnerability, as the young beings are a lot less able to protect themselves. Through creating a lack of protection, through the girl’s positions, this meant that the audiences were a lot more suspicious regarding the girls near futures.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In my opinion, I think the main media institution that would be interested in producing our product would be companies that promote thrillers. There are many different types of thriller and in our video we have analyzed in depth the psychological form of thriller. We think that companies would be interested in distributing our product, as it is more than likely to receive a large amount of prophet. Teenagers are becoming increasing interested in different forms of thrillers. As large groups of teens continuously pay for the thrill of horrors, media institutions receive massive sums of money, and this is their main goal.

I think that our psychological thriller would appeal to media institutions as it follows similar conventions of modern day horrors. This is a positive aspect of our film because media companies will be looking for thrillers that are up to date with modern technology and ideas. Our introduction contains a lot of tense scenes that we think would scare/ creep out our target audiences. Our product also rebels against some modern day conceptualities, which in order makes it a lot more individual from common thrillers. I think that teenagers become increasing annoyed with the perceptions held about them, regarding other age/ social groups. By conflicting against these common norms, teenagers can finally have a break from the viewpoints that are continuously placed upon them.

In order to distribute our movie to media institutions, we would firstly sell it to a few small companies to sample our production. By doing this we could review our final target audience, and see how effective it was in selling. We would take these small steps because if we were to firstly sell our product to a large range of higher media companies, this could lead to disaster. If the product was in effective then media constitution would lose a lot of prophet and therefore the process would crash and burn. To prevent this from happening, small steps are taken to ensure stability and back up protections.

Who would be the audience for you media product?

We found that through looking at our psychological thriller, and making analysis during the whole process, our media product is based around people between 15-25 years old. We choose this age range because when looking at different types of audiences, we found out that this age group is most common for watching thrillers. This is important because if we do not address the correct target audience, then it will be in effective; as other age ranges will be lest engaged and interested.

During our media progression, we analyses our target audience by asking a range of different question on numerous occasions. By following this procedure, we were able to get a greater insight into who our real target audiences were. We thought as a group that girls were more affected by our thriller, as during the audience feedback, girls seemed to be more greatly affected than boys. This is a positive aspect regarding the world of media, as companies would receive a greater value of money if the target audience was girls. The reason for this is because stereotypically, girls travel in groups when visiting the cinema to watch scary films, as they act as forms of protection for each other. Therefore media companies receive large prophets. However, our thriller does also apply to boys because some boys are affected emotionally the same as girls. By addressing both genders through our production, a maximum amount of money could be produced, through the process of advertising.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

During the editing process of our two minute psychological thriller, we had many chances to address our target audience to get updated feedback, on their viewpoints regarding our introduction. Our two main forms of this process was addressing our audience through survey monkey and also recording ourselves asking our target audiences numerous amounts of questions. By following this continuous process, we were able to look greatly into who our true target audiences were, and how we would be able to attract them towards our psychological thriller.

Before our film was fully created, we used forms of propaganda to advertise our thriller. We created a poster of the first victim Jane (me) covered in blood, dead. We done this because at first glance the image is very shocking, and therefore it attracts our audience from the beginning; before the film is even released. We chose to create this type of image because it creates a real sense of vulnerability regarding the victim, and many teenagers our age can relate to that feeling during their lifetimes. This also attracts the audience as similarities between two parties create a sense of understanding, and therefore current audiences can relate to the characters in the film.

In addition, we continued to entice our target audience by having re occurring problems occur between groups of friends. Teenagers are well known for having pathetic fights that can lead to an overdramatic consequence. We related to the audience in this sense because we created a little flashback fighting scene, which allows the audience to acknowledge that there is nothing supernatural about the actresses; they are merely teenage girls from a middle class background.

Finally, we addressed our audience through making our thriller follow the origin of a psychological thriller. We added different scenes to keep the audience engaged, whilst also experimenting with different lighting to add to the feeling of suspense. Through doing this, we ensured that the audience would continue to remain engaged during our thriller, and feel tense in the process. We are happy with the outcome that we managed to create, in order to connect to our audience; overly making the experience of thriller seems more personal.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Looking at different forms of technology has really helped me to view media from a different perspective. Before the process of construction, I did not really realize how much effort is actually taken to create just a few minutes of filming. Now when I watch clips, I tend to overly appreciate the amount of effort that must have been taken, just to produce a short piece. During this interesting journey, I have been made aware of many types of technology, which have really extended my capability and intellectual capacity.

The first technology that I learnt to use was the camera. Before media I had a certain aspect of knowledge of how to use a camera; however my own experience was limited. Through being able to record a psychological thriller, I was personally able to experiment with different shots and angles, whilst also learning how to work the buttons/ touch screens associated. Before media, I did not realize how many different shots were needed merely for a short clip, and therefore the use of the camera really helped me to explore this factor. There was a variety of different models we used to film, and as a result this deepened my understanding.    

Moreover, during the editing process I was able to explore the use of prelim for the first time. Before the creating of my thriller introduction, I had no experience in using editing software, and therefore I found the process very interesting and eye opening. I came to realize by the end of the editing stages that my improvement skills were actually pretty effective, and more importantly I really enjoyed the ongoing process. Prelim helped me to gain skills regarding improvements; such as cropping, adding music, taking sound away, adding captions, including fades and changing colour effects.

Finally, one of the most important technologies that I have been exposed to through taking this course is blogger. Blogger allowed me and my group to update work on a regular basis, in a neat and ordered format. Before taking media, I had never used blogger and through learning how to use the site, whilst also gaining a greater understanding of how to perform uploads; this has been extremely helpful. Without the use of blogger, I have no idea how I would have managed to keep my work so neat and tidy, without losing/ missing out crucial information.

Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Before the creation of our two minute psychological thriller, each member in our group had to carry out a preliminary task. The task was to walk from a corridor, into a classroom and then to sit down and have a conversation with one of our friends. The purpose of this task was to allow us to explore prelim and to also come to terms with the shots that were required in this example. We used full shots, medium/ medium close up  and close up shots.

Now that I look back on my preliminary task, which seems like such a long time ago, I think I have gained a lot of knowledge regarding filming and different techniques that can be used. If I was to re do my preliminary task I think there would be multiple things that I would do differently, in order to make it a better quality piece of work. There were a few problems with the lighting and the matching up of scenes, showing a lack of continuity. Through analyzing different pieces of coursework, it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that in some of the old pieces of work I have produced, there are continuity problems.

Another problem that I realized regarding my preliminary coursework was the positioning of the camera. In a few shots you can only really see one side of the girl’s faces, and therefore this takes emphasis away from the expressions that they are trying to convey. If I was to re do my preliminary coursework, I think I would spend more time trying to position the camera more accurately, so that the girl’s expressions could have been captured more accurately.

Overall, I think that my preliminary coursework was successful from the terms of a first time attempt. However, now that I have more experience in how to use the camera and knowing more about problems that can occur, this makes me very hypercritical and judgmental regarding my work. However, I do not think this is a bad thing as this analysis allows me to improve my current work and make it to the best of its capacity. I think that media is a real ongoing process, where what you learn over a certain amount of time, really allows you to form judgment regarding your own work and how you can make improvements. Media analysis has really allowed me to view clips from a whole new perspective, and therefore I am a lot more appreciative/judgmental of them.

Evaluation- Hannah Philpott Evaluation Writeup

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media?
I feel that our opening scene doesn't really develop any of the conventions of real media but I do believe that it does challenge and use them. We have used the same camera angles and shots that real media would use. We used the point of view shot, which is a classic in horror films, to make the audience feel like they are involved with the film. The close ups and other shots we used are used in most of real media today. The music we used is classic for horror films as it builds up tension and makes the audience feel paranoid. The ways in which our film challenges real media is by the girls not being stereotyped. Usually in horror films the women are the once who get killed or if the woman is the killer she is sexually objectified and can only kill her victim by having sex with them. Our murderer doesn't kill men, she kills her best friends which is unusual for horror films.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We have aimed our thriller at teenagers so we decided to use a group of teenage girls. We haven't made it that stereotypical of a group of teenagers. The characters don't drink or take drugs but they are shown having an argument over some gossip that one of them has spread. The other way that the girls are stereotyped is when they are ganging up on Danika. They are having an intense argument over something small but its been turned into a big deal, like it usually is with teenagers, and its being dealt with in a violent confrontation. Danika is taking revenge on the other girls by killing them one by one and making the other girls suffer with the worry of where their friends are disappearing to. I feel that the revenge side of the killing is definitely stereotypical of teenage girls but the having a girl killer who is killing her best friends isn't as in most thriller films its a male who is the murderer or if it is a female killer then she is killing men and can only do that through sexual actions.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
At first I believe Blue Sky Productions will give our film, Danika, to small media institutions to see what feelings they have about the film. Once they have watched it, gave us feedback and hopefully told us that the target audience would be highly interested in our film then we will send it off to bigger companies. We would make a trailer and get it shown in the cinema when a 15-certificate film or a horror film is being shown so that its target audience that sees the trailer and not just people who are not interested in thrillers. The film will then get shown in cinema's. If it is successful in the U.K then we will pitch it to international companies. This will bring in more profit for the company and will make the film highly popular. Once the film is finished in the cinema if T.V. companies are interested, "Sky Movies", and movie sites like "Love Film" and "Netflix" then it will go to them and eventually will go onto DVD.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
As a group we have decided to have a target audience of 15 and above. We did target audience research to see who watched the most thriller films. We looked at age range and gender to decide this. The research told us that more women watch thriller films than men and that 15-25 year olds watch them the most. Looking at these statistics we decided, as a group, to aim the film at young women, as this will bring in more profit for us. The characters are easy to relate to as every woman has the age of the characters, 16-17, and they have all had problems with their friends. We feel that the subject they fight over is one that every woman can relate to either on Danika's side or on Jane, Mia and Lily's side. The music we have chosen gives the film the thriller feeling t
hat our target audience loves. We used the snowy setting to create pathetic fallacy, where the weather represents the feelings of the character. We wanted our target audience to feel the coldness of their friendship and see how Danika felt inside.

How did you attract/address your audiences?
To attract our audience we use a variety of techniques to attract our audience to our film. One of the ways was making a poster. This poster was made to let people know what the name of the flm is, what the genre of the film and a basic plot to the film. The name of the film is printed across the top so it is clear to people what the film is called. You can tell the genre by the darkness of the poster and the dead girl on it. This clearly shows that the film is a horror. We felt that using the dead girl to advertise the film will make the target audience interested in what happened to her. The plot is basically printed on the poster by showing that one of the characters gets murdered. Again this will interest the audience in what happens to the girl and what else happens during the film. The other way we addressed our audience was through the social networking site Facebook. We posted a link to our opening scene onto facebook so people can view it. From here they can share it to all of their friends and so on. This will make our film popular by word of mouth because most people in the world have a Facebook account and most people have internet at anytime on their mobiles and computers so they can view it on YouTube and show their friends.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As a group we used a lot of different technology to create our film. Firstly we learnt how to use a camera and tripod. The camera was easy to use but it was hard to get the right shots and angles to create the right effect. We had to retake shots again and again to try out what different shots we could have and what was the most effective. The tripod was simple to use. We were able to get the right height and able to keep the camera steady whilst filming. When using Adobe Premiere we got confused at first but once we knew how to use all the tools and add effects, music and transitions, we were able to edit our film quickly and effectively. To film our podcasts we used the Photobooth that is only availble on Apple devices. Photobooth was easy to use but we kept making mistakes and laughing so it took longer than we thought it would. To share our work we used a number of sites such as Blogger, Prezi and Youtube. Blogger and Prezi were completely new sites to our group but as a group we were able to work out how to use them. For me personally, YouTube was easy to use as I have uploaded video's to YouTube before. We used a programme called Celtx to write our script, master catalogue and creat our storyboard. We were able to do this quickly and create good pieces of work.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Personally I have learnt a lot. I have learnt how to create different views of peoples characters with a camera by just changing the angle of it. I used software that I have never used before making this opening scene for example, Adobe Premiere. Before making the opening scene I had never heard of this programme but through using it I have now learnt how to cut footage, add it together to make it flow, add transitions such as fade to white and fade to black, add music, add effects such as black and white and add credits and title scenes. I have also learnt how the audience view certain characters and why they view them in that way. I found this side of the research really interesting as I got to learn about the psychology of media. Other information I learnt was about the different horror genres. I never knew there were different types of horror films before we started the research but now I can tell the difference between each of the types. Over all of this though I have learnt that working in a team is harder than I thought it would be. There were arguments over who was doing what work, when we were filming and when we were staying behind to do work. We overcame the problems quickly as we are such good friends and we got all the work done in the end.

Evaluation- Xhuliana Deda: Evaluation Writeup

Evaluation- Xhuliana Deda: Evaluation Writeup

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When thinking about our media product in terms of real media products, I think that we have been very realistic in the fact that we have tried as much as possible to transfer the elements of a real media into our own two minute introduction and I further on I will be talking about the different elements we had to include.  As a group we came up with the idea of using a psychological thriller, whereby a girl and her best friends fall out, which the main character doesn’t want so she is seeking revenge and wants to kill them. For our psychological thriller to be successful there were a number of effects and transitions that we had to add in order to create that atmosphere, we had to think about tense music, low key lighting, various shots and angles that confuse the audience in terms of what the you think is going on, and the eeriness the settings present towards the audience.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media product we used female teenagers as the actors as this is who our target audience is going to be. This represent that they are teenagers we were all dressed in casual clothing in order to tell us apart from somebody of a higher class therefore this means that who it is aimed at is very clear. It presents the stereotypical view of teenagers today as the root of Danika’s revenge is based solely on an argument with her friends, which is showing that actual teenagers are always out to make trouble and that they cant control their anger so they resort to violence.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that a low budget media institution like small independent companies would be perfect to distribute our film as it would be unrealistic for companies such as Universal at this stage to take on our film as it has no famous actors in it thus may not appeal to the audience, we also did not film in a professional studio so we did not have any high- tech equipment to create effects like CGI. Therefore I believe that a low budget film company is perfect for us as we have a unique film and they are more likely at this stage than a bigger company to take a risk as thriller films prove to be quite popular with audience. Once we have constructive criticism form those companies, we can expand and take our product to larger international companies, where if we distribute our film we could end up making profit, through advertising it first so people know about it and then putting it into the cinema and late on releasing it onto DVD.

 How did you attract/address your target audience?

In order to address our target audience we conducted demographic research at the very beginning of our course; this was going to give us an insight on who we should target our film to. We found that women watch thriller films more than men do. We also carried out the same research to see the age groups that tend to watch this genre. We were then able to utilise this research and narrow our target audience down to 15-25 year old females of any race or nationality. We think this was suitable as the actors are all of that age group and so they can relate to the characters. We specifically didn’t choose a certain race/nationality as it is a film that anyone could be interested in watching. In order to attract our target audience we used mise-en-scene and editing to help us, we used various settings so we could give more variety to the audience and have them know that each setting is for something specific. The music I think was the most important part to add to the eerie atmosphere and really give a sense of tension to the audience watching.

What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product?

Moreover in September I had limited knowledge in regards to the technology used in order to create a media product, now on the other side I feel that I am able to identify different technologies and their purposes very well. In order to make a high standard piece of work a lot of technology is required and now I know how to use much more software such as Adobe Premiere (which I would not have been able to experience using if not for Media). I have also had the opportunity to experiment with a camera and tripod and putting what I have learnt to do with the camera into practice. However I did not anticipate the sheer amount of technology needed to create a two minute introduction, having said this, the technology have vastly helped and improved our work. I think that Adobe Premiere was one of my favourite piece of software to use as the editing was something I had never before done and through it I learnt how to use different effects/transitions and while learning this our film was coming together also. Overall, technology was used in every aspect of the project and without it, our project as a whole (including blog and film) would have lacked quality.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Reflecting back on out preliminary there has been many things I have learnt since I first started to completing the finished scene. I think the way I coped was by planning every step. When doing out preliminary we had a set task given to us and we were told how to do everything from the shots to how we had to sit. However since moving on to making our final product we had to be extremely independent in order to achieve what we wanted. The first obstacle we had to overcome was actually thinking of a plot, which was slightly altered numerous times until we had something that would work with the genre and that we were able to with the limited equipment we had. We looked at opening scenes from other thriller films and picked what we thought was best for us, as you can see in the blog post ‘initial ideas’. Before we even started filming, through looking at other thrillers we were able to obtain the generic camera/shots/angles mise-en-scene etc used in thrillers so we could in someway incorporate it into our film. After a lot of analysis into the genre and consulting with each other we decided on psychological thriller as the genre for our film. From our preliminary to our finished task we improved greatly in using different camera shots and angles and making the film flow better. In our preliminary we just used medium close-ups and close-ups which can be used in most genres, however our scene to tie in with the genre we used POV shots etc and we learned how to use transitions so it snappy instead well put together.

Evaluation - Elidona Niklekaj - Evaluation Writeup

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When developing our two minute opening thriller scene, we had to choose a type of thriller we wanted to produce. As a group we came up with the idea of a psychological thriller involving four teenage girls, who end up falling out with one of them due to arguments and she is left all alone, with no friends and ends up turning on the other three girls for revenge.

The aim of our psychological thriller is to appeal to our target audience, by leaving them on the edge of their seats. For this to be successful we have to add a number of effects and different camera shots to the opening scene to give suspense and to create an eerie atmosphere.

In addition when editing we all tried to familiarise ourselves with all the different camera shots and effects so that we could better ourselves for the final production. These things included cutting scenes, speeding/slowing down, zoom and lighting. Transaction was also needed to add continuity and also cut away to fit in shots such as shot/reverse shot and insertions, at first this was proving to be quite difficult, but this time round, with the final thriller product we were able to edit with haste, leaving us more time to concentrate on other forms of editing. Such as sound and title credits, we decided to use sound tracks from YouTube that goes with our psychological thriller. We used different sound effects, including a rapid heartbeat and thriller background music. As a group we found it rather hard to select the correct kind of soundtrack that was suitable for our thriller. Whereas in the preliminary task, we had not used any sound effects or tracks which made this process even more difficult.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

From looking at research that the group and I conducted on thriller movies we found that teenagers and young adults were the main target group for thrillers and were the most people who watched them. Finding this out we decided to use teenagers in our psychological thriller film, we chose to use four girls in our film which worked well for our group because we could all be part of the film as we are female teenagers ourselves. Also having worn casual clothing the audience can tell that the teenagers are from a middle class background.

By using teenagers rather than adults builds more suspense for the audience as they are more vulnerable and the viewers may be in fear for the teenagers’ danger. At the beginning of the film we see a lonely girl in her room looking at a picture which takes us back in time to an argument she has with her exfriends, this stereotypes teenagers of society today; being trouble makers and always fighting, arguing and bullying one another. 

Stereo typically we see a male as the killer in a thriller but we have had to change that around a use a female that ends up seeking revenge on her ex-friends  This does lose the effect of male power and dominance over females, however in this sort of film that is based on female teenagers can still work.

  

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I believe media companies that are interested in psychological thrillers and movies that will leave you on the edge of your seat would be interested in our thriller film (Danika). As a group we think it’s best to distribute our media product to small independent companies first to see whether they think our film is successful or not. This will allow us to collect feedback before moving on to larger companies, which would have wasted our time if it wasn't successful. Also more profit can be gained as no money would have been lost through commercialism.

When our film is successful we will then pitch our ideas to larger and international companies. This will increase the films reputation and the amount of people that watch our film will increase, therefore so will profit. By advertising the film and having it showed in cinemas for a few mouths and see if the target audience are interested in see the film. We will then put out the film on DVD’s in stores ready for people to buy the film.

Who would be the target audience for your media product?

Our target audience are 15 – 25 year old females. In relation to our storyboard and our ideas, we think that it is suitable and meets requirements of this audience. As the age group of the characters are 16-17 years old so fits in well with the target audience and allows them to relate to the characters and the story more.

As a group we found this out by using different research on our film such as questionnaires and interviews conducted on different age groups and came up with the findings of our target audience. The use of low key lighting, sound effect and different variety of camera shots helped to build fear in the opening scene.

How did you attract address your audience?

Moreover we used various methods to attract and address our audience. This was achieved by using methods that would appeal to our target audience, teen females and above. Having gathered information from our questionnaires we were able to view the feedback we received from different people and come up with aspects that would attract our target audience. One of the main aspects was having a female that would play an important role in the story line. This enabled the target audience to compare themselves and relate to the main character. We also have three other female roles in the film; this gives variation for the viewers to compare themselves to the actors in the film.

Another aspect that helped attract and address our audience was mostly done through mise-en-scene and editing. As our task was to create an opening sequence of a thriller we decided to have three different locations were we can film our opening scene, one was Danika’s house, the flashback scene and finally the killing scene which was the park scene. This added more flavor to the film and variations of settings. In addition when filming our scenes we tried to use different camera shots and angles to keep the audience entertained and to ensure they keep watching. Also when editing our film, we added a number of effects, such as fades and video transactions to help each of the scenes fit in well with one another. As well as music and sound effects helped to build tension throughout the opening scene, such as heart beats and background thriller music, which went along with the scenes e.g. the killing scene in the park.

  

What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product?

From the process of creating our two minute psychological thriller I have learnt a lot about the technology behind filming, I will never look at a film the same again. The process of construction our opening sequence has taught me a lot about the work behind creating a piece of the film. I have learnt about the number of different camera shots and angles, also when it is appropriate to use them.

Other than knowing how to use the camera I have learnt a range of new software I hadn't used before media such as, Celtx, Blogger, Premiere Pro and many others. When using the editing software Premiere to put the film together, my knowledge has increased since the preliminary task. Leaning how to cut out sections of scenes, use video transitions to add black and white overlays to create an effect, also adding in music and credits to a film.

Another form of technology that we used was blogger. I had never experienced using the blogger site until my media lessons. I have learnt how to upload videos, pictures and PowerPoint to the site by using slide share, which is an example of another site I had to use while in the process of completing my media coursework.

Finally I think that the whole process of creating our psychological thriller scene has enabled myself and others in the group to get an insight into the long the process of creating a successful film takes and has also widen my knowledge of how to use certain technologies.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Before planning and creating our thriller opening scene we carried out a preliminary task. This was done to allow the group and I to feel familiar with the camera equipment and the editing software we have to use to create our film. There are many features that we had never used before on the editing software (premiere pro), such as import, export, cut, link, zoom, text inputting and audio input. The preliminary task allowed us to familiarise ourselves and practice using the different functions of the software.

Another editing technique which we had to be careful of and learn was the continuity rule; this was mainly carried out when filming. The continuity rule is making sure each shot follows onto the next one; an example is in the preliminary task when we each member of the group has to walk through a door and use two different camera shots to show this. By conducting the preliminary task we were able to practice our acting skills and editing techniques for the actual thriller film. 

Evaluation - How did you attract your target audience?

In this podcast we are talking about how we attracted our target audience and if we were going to continue making the film how would we continue to attract our target audience and maybe expand it to other genders etc.

Evaluation- What kind of media institute would distribute our film?

In this prezi we are explaining how we could get our piece of coursework from where it is now to international cinemas. We explain what each level of cinema hopes to do for our media comapany, what important people that we want will watch it and who will invest in our film in the current state that it is now. Aside from this we also wrote about how our film can be improved at each level to attract a larger target audience which then in effect leads us to making more profit in the long run.By doing all of this we can get an insight into what kind of media institution would distribute our two minute opening scene.

Evaluation- Character Representation

In this prezi, we are talking about character representation and how we did or didn't use the different types of social groups in our film. The social groups we go over are race, gender, class,region and age. In each section we explain what they all mean and how they are used as stereotypes in everyday life.

Evaluation-Who would be the target audience for our film?

Target Audience: The target audience is a group of people of the same age, race, gender or nationality that would be interested in anything you are selling, for example in our case a psychological thriller film. Its always best to know your exact target audience, this is because it allows you to aim and sell your product to an audience you know would be interested and want to buy your product. Helping your media company to expand and make more profit. Below i am going to be writing about our target audience for our film, and how we came to know our exact target audience. 

Our target audience are 15–25 year old females of any race and nationality. In relation to our storyboard and our ideas, we think that it is suitable and meets requirements of this audience. As the age group of the characters are 16-17 years old so fits in well with the target audience and allows them to relate to the characters and the story more. As a group we found this out by using different research on our film such as questionnaires and interviews conducted on different age groups and came up with the findings of our target audience. 

We have also looked at the demographic research that we conducted at the beginning of the assignment. From the graphs and tables we analysed we found that thriller films were mainly viewed by females with a percentage of 58%. Due to the fact that women tend to go out in large groups of girls when going to watch a horror or thriller film. Whereas males tend to only go to watch a horror or thriller film if a women is with him. 

Moreover when looking at the demographics we also found that a certain age group tends to like watch horror or thriller films. From the graph we looked at we could see that people between the age of 18-24 are the majority to go out and watch horror or thriller films. however the general population who watch movies in general are people who are 50+, due to the reason that the have more time on their hands as they are no longer working.

Finally our exact target audience are 15-25 year old females of any race or nationality. We think as a group the race and nationality of our target audience isn't as important. We believe any sort of race or nationality can be interested in viewing our film. Even though the film is filmed in the UK and has English actors you still have many people that like to view English films and want to relate to the actors in the film.  

Evaluation - Forms and Convections of Media Texts

Evaluation-Forms and Conventions of Media Texts from blueskyproduction

Evaluation - Hannah Philpott What I have learnt about Media and Technology

Evaluation- Elidona Niklekaj What i have learned about Media and Technology

Evaluation - Xhuliana Deda What i have learned about Media and Technology

Evaluation- Shannon House- What I have learned about media and technology

Evaluation-Prezi-Technology used for Coursework

In this prezi we were explaining the various pieces of technology( including blogger and Youtube) that we used during the construction of our opening scene and that were very useful in helping us make the best product possible. We explain how each certain piece of technology helped us in different aspects of the construction process and how without them we could not make a worthy opening scene.

Evaluation-Target Audience Feedback

Evaluation- Target Audience Research Summary

Survey Monkey Results Evaluation:

During the process of making and finishing our film, we knew that it was going to be extremely important to receive constructive criticism, which would overly help us to see our work from a different perspective. Whilst looking at your own work, the views that you perceive, based on quality can sometimes be prejudice; due to it being your own creation. However, through other people seeing our work, we could really see as a group what we needed to improve on and the adaptations that could be made. Through using survey monkey, we were able to create a number of different analysis questions that really would help us to gain many different opinions. We were then given the opportunity to hand our surveys out to a number of different people, who were from different cultural backgrounds, age, race, religion, gender etc to get a real strong feedback. During this process, we found through looking at our feedback that there were reoccurring themes of things that we could change, whilst things that were perceived as positive. I am now going to explain these different responses and how they helped us during the final editing process. 

Many of our feedback forms agreed on a few clips that they found effective and were happy with. The most reoccurring response for success was the clip of Danika (Xhuliana) circling the three girls heads. This clip was seen to be successful as it really highlighted to the audience what was happening during the process of our two minute clip. We were very happy with the feedback regarding the circling frame scene as our main intention of this clip was to increase the viewers awareness about what was happening. Through our feedback we have seen that we were successful in creating this effect. Another success that we found apparent through our feedback forms was the flashback scene. Many people agreed in certain ways that this scene was effective because it highlighted the reason Danika wanted to seek revenge. We were also very delighted with this feedback because we knew that with only two minutes to film a psychological thriller introduction, we needed to be very clear about the plot; and this has been achieved as seen through the feedback.

Whilst creating our questionnaire on survey monkey, we also allowed our audience to have the chance to give us some negative criticism. By receiving this criticism we were able to view our work from another person’s point of view, meaning we were able to make correction that we had not picked up our self. One critic who we found helpful said that they found there was lighting problems in the last two clips. When looking back on our work, we did realise that there were major continuity problems, and therefore we were able to edit the last two clips to make the lighting more similar. This was very helpful because it allowed us to see the corrections needed, that we had not picked up on from our own terms. Another re occurring criticism that we had was that the death scene of Lily (Shannon) was very dark and therefore editing it would be a good idea, so that the impact on the audience was greater. This gave us the opportunity to go back over this clip and make adaptations to it, so that the audience were more affected by Lily’s death. Overall we were very happy to receive negative criticism from our questionnaire, as this meant that we could go back and make changes to the clips that did not fit the audience’s specification. We found it awakening to see our film through the eyes of others and we have made our best efforts to change the clips to the greatest of their capacity. 

In order to make our film better, there are many changes that we could make, which would mean our psychological thriller was more overly effective. Through receiving all of our important feedback, we were able to more easily identify the areas of our thriller that were effective, whilst looking at other parts that failed to reach a higher expectation. I think that throughout our two minute introduction the main problem was continuity. Whilst many scenes matched perfectly, there were others that did not really give the right effect we were looking for. There were firstly problems with the lighting, such as the window and park scene, meaning that this declined from the impact on our audience. To change this, we would have to go back into prelim and try to edit the lighting and contrast on some clips, so that they matched up more with lips that were sonly going to follow. We would also have to work on cropping clips so that the matching up of actor’s gestures would be more instinct. Finally, we would re access the video format, in terms of which clip follows each other. During our feedback, we were told that some clips could be a bit over repetitive, and therefore as a group we would like to re analyse this and see where there is room for improvement. 

In conclusion, if we were to re start this process over, I think there would be multiple scenes that we would like to re try, in order to make the effects more dramatic. As a group we felt that there were a few problems associated to the lighting of the park scene. If I was able to re do this clip I would be more inclined to try start sooner in the day, so that the death scene had a greater impact. We felt that due to the lighting, the image was not as clear as it could have been portrayed; had we started earlier. Secondly, if we had the opportunity, we all agreed that we would have liked to re edit the window scene. We hold this viewpoint because we did not realise until the editing process that there were problems with continuity, and through our feedback, we did realise that this was apparent to the watching audience. If we were to re do this clip, we would have started, again at an earlier time so that the lighting outside the window was more accurate and similar between the clips. Last but not least, we would have also liked to make changes to some of the shots we used in the flashback scene. Although we feel as a group that there were clips that we used which were appropriated, there were some clips that ended up very blurry, as we had to edit them to make them a larger size. This also took away from the effectiveness of our video. Overall, we are very happy with the opportunity feedback has provided us with. 

Evaluation- Survey Monkey Results

Below are ten print screens from our survey monkey questionnaire on our two minute psychological thriller opening sequence (Danika). Each of the print screens represent the ten questions that we asked our target audience which are 15 to 25 year old females, we also got males to take the survey to see what they thought of the two minute opening sequence and if they would be interested in watching the rest of the film. 

This is a print screen of the open page on survey money after logging in. As you an see we have our survey up called Blue Sky Productions - Danika Questionnaire. You can see from the print screen the a number of ten people from our target audience have viewed our film. Below are going to be another ten print screens showing each question from the questionnaire and the responses we got from our target audience. This will help to evaluate our film in knowing if our target audience thought it was a success and if they would be interested in watching the whole movie. We also got a few males to watch the film and take the questionnaire, in order to see if they would enjoy our film as well, therefore we can expand our target audience, increasing profit in the future.

This is the first question that was asked in the questionnaire " are you male or female?", as you can see from the print screen there were 30% of males that took part in the questionnaire and 70% that were females. This helps us to see which gender viewed our film and liked it best.

As you can see this is the second question asked "what was you initial thoughts whilst watching our film?", from this question we got a good deal of positive feedback from our target audiences. Most of our audiences liked the story line and wanted to keep on watching the film, as they found it interesting. 

This is a print screen showing the third question on the questionnaire "what did you think about the settings we used for our psychological thriller?", we got positive feedback from the audiences. Most thought that the use of different scenes made the film more effective in that it was more entertaining and the different scenes also fit in well with the story line.

This is the forth print screen and question from the questionnaire, "what did you think about the character representation?" most people thought that the roles with the film were played well and effectively  specially Danika's role as she acted well and made her seem creepy which was needed for a role. They also liked the make up and costumes that we used to represent each character. 

This is the fifth print screen showing the fifth question "did our introduction make you want to watch the rest of our film?". You can see from the print screen that we received 100% from our audiences that said they would watch the rest of the film, this was from both boys and girls. 

This is the sixth print screen and question from the questionnaire " did you think the title of the film was relevant to our two minute introduction?"  to our film. Again we received 100% results from our audiences agreeing that the title was relevant to the opening sequence, i mainly think because the its named after the main character and the killer of the film.

This is the seventh print screen showing the the seventh question " what effect did the sound effects have on you, based on our two minute introduction ". As you can see received positive feedback on the question as most people thought that the sound and music effects helped to build more tension in the film and made some people even jump. 

This is a print screen of our eighth question " do you think the opening scene is effective on drawing in the audience?" and the responses we received. As you can see we received 100% from both males and females thinking that the opening scene is effective in drawing in the audience.  

This is another print screen showing the ninth print screen and question on the questionnaire "what do you like most about our opening scene?" from looking back at the feedback we received most people said that they liked the circling of the three girls faces as it left them think what will happen to them. They also liked the flashback scene in black and white and killing scene. 

Finally this is a print screen showing the tenth and last question on the questionnaire "what do you think could have been improved?", we found out that most of our audiences said that the acting could have been improved and the each scene could had a better flow transaction. This has helped us as we know know what could be improved so that the target audience would enjoy the film even more.